Cropping system ideotyping for exploring agroecological intensification pathways in rainfed smallholder systems of eastern Senegal

Context: Rainfed smallholder systems in the Sudano-Sahelian zone must sustain production under declining soil fertility, high weed pressure and low crop diversity. Designing agroecological intensification remains challenging because of farm heterogeneity, creating a need for tools that structure the exploration of options upstream of on-farm experimentation.,Objective: We introduce and test cropping system ideotyping as an intermediate design object linking agronomic diagnosis and prototyping to explore contrasted pathways of agroecological intensification in eastern Senegal.,Methods: Building on a multi-scale agronomic diagnosis identifying three priority constraints in bushfields, participatory workshops were conducted with farmers in Koussanar (Tambacounda). Participants analyzed constraints, identified innovation pathways, and assembled coherent cropping-system ideotypes that were subsequently translated into operational prototype cropping systems.,Results and conclusion: Four contrasted ideotypes were co-designed, representing distinct strategies of agroecological intensification: (i) spatial reorganization of labor and organic resources ("Intensive"), (ii) labor–capital substitution through mechanization and improved resource management ("Optimized"), (iii) market-oriented crop diversification reducing dependence on groundnut through new crops ("Innovator"), and (iv) women-led irrigated horticulture in homestead fields, coupling off-season vegetable production with secure land access ("Diversified"). Rather than converging on a single model, these ideotypes revealed complementary strategies adapted to contrasting farm contexts, combining technical, organisational and socio-technical innovations as coupled innovation pathways.,Significance: Cropping system ideotyping provides an intermediate design object linking diagnosis and prototyping. By opening the design space before experimentation, it enables the collective comparison of alternative agroecological intensification strategies and offers a transferable method for co-designing sustainable pathways in low-input rainfed farming systems.